Recently my friend Chef James Sly dropped off 50 pounds of lemons at our kitchen. It was a much-appreciated gift. My pastry chef, wife Christine Dahl makes a terrific lemon curd that she uses to fill cakes and fruit tarts. After a couple hours of zesting and juicing, we have the lemon component done and in the freezer awaiting transformation into curd.
I first learned to make lemon curd in 1977 when I was sous chef to James at a place called La Serre, the Greenhouse. The restaurant featured a lattice and plant decor the give it an indoor garden effect. It was the haunt for entertainment personalities working in the Burbank studios and environs. Pictured below is the table favored by Natalie Wood and it was known as Natalie's Nook.
We used the curd at La Serre to fill a rolled cake called Roulade. It was simply a pliable sponge cake that was filled with lemon curd and rolled into a log, covered with powdered sugar and sliced for plating. After dusting the cake with powdered sugar, it was branded in a criss-cross pattern with a red-hot iron rod. The recipe below is the one Chef James used and I imagine he picked that up during his stint in France at the Ritz Hotel.
History of the Ritz Hotel, from their web page.
It was back in the late 1800s that the Swiss hotelier, Cesar Ritz, purchased the former palace style mansion on the Place Vendome, which had originally been designed by Jules Hardouin Mansart, the royal architect for King Louis XIV and construction was started in 1705.
Having worked at The Savoy in London alongside the incredible French Chef, Auguste Escoffier, the hotel became an incredible success for wealthy clientele, yet Cesar Ritz had a vision to open the most luxurious hotel in the world fit for a prince, with his chosen destination being Paris.
So when the Ritz Hotel opened its doors in 1898 every room had its own bathroom, which was totally unheard of at that time, and decorated with top of the range fabrics, tapestries, gilding, etc, it was like an 18th-century gem attracting high society from the word go, (see this link for more).
